Jagged

a. Also 6 geagged. [f. JAG sb.¹ and v.¹ + -ED. Now usually disyllabic as adjective, monosyllabic as participle.]

  1.  Of a garment, etc.: Cut into jags by way of ornament; pinked, slashed.

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 255/2. Iaggyd, or daggyd, fractillosus.

1459.  Paston Lett., I. 476. Item, j jagged huke of blakke sengle. Ibid., 480.

1519.  Horman, Vulg., 112. He hath a pleasure in geagged clothynge [laciniosa veste].

1547.  Boorde, Introd. Knowl., xxvii. (1870), 190. My rayment is iagged and kut round a-bout.

1641.  Milton, Ch. Govt., I. vi. She might go jagg’d in as many cuts and slashes as she pleas’d for you.

  2.  Having the edge irregularly cut, gashed, or torn, into deep indentations and acute projections; torn or worn to a ragged or uneven edge.

1577.  Stanyhurst, Descr. Irel., iii. in Holinshed (1587), II. 21/2. The Irish feare a ragged and iagged blacke standard that the citizens haue.

1596.  Spenser, F. Q., V. ix. 10. An vncouth vestiment Made of straunge stuffe, but all to-worne and ragged;… his breech was all to-torne and iagged.

1684.  T. Burnet, The. Earth, I. 130. The shores and coasts of the sea … go in a line uncertainly crooked and broke, indented and jag’d as a thing torn.

1797.  Coleridge, Christabel, I. 282. Amid the jagged shadows Of mossy leafless boughs.

1835–6.  Todd, Cycl. Anat., I. 455/1. [The] extremities [of the bone] are always jagged, pointed and uneven.

1840.  Dickens, Barn. Rudge, lix. Having borrowed a notched and jagged knife.

  b.  Her. (See quot.)

1828–40.  Berry, Encycl. Herald., I. Gloss., Jagged … is said of the division of the field, or of the outlines of an ordinary, which appear rough by being forcibly torn asunder.

  3.  Having the margin naturally furnished with deep irregular indentations and projecting points; laciniated: esp. of leaves, petals, and the like.

1523.  Fitzherb., Husb., § 20. Golds hath a shorte iagged lefe.

1685.  J. Chamberlayne, Coffee, Tea & Choc., 38. Its branches are covered with white and yellow flowers jagg’d and pick’d from top to bottom.

1740.  P. Collinson, in Darlington, Mem. Bartram & Marshall (1849), 137. A very pretty dwarf Gentian, with a large blue flower, the extremity of the flower-leaves, all notched or jagged.

1767.  Gooch, Treat. Wounds, I. 421. The Morsus Diaboli, a jagged body, ridiculously so called, resembling a fringe.

1870.  Hooker, Stud. Flora, 49. Dianthus cæsius,… petals jagged and bearded.

  b.  In names of plants: Having jagged leaves or flowers.

1548.  Turner, Names Herbs, s.v. Verbenaca, The leaues are deaplyer endented…. It may be called in english geagged Bugle.

1688.  R. Holme, Armoury, II. 88/2. Jagged Germander hath the flowers spiky.

1776–96.  Withering, Brit. Plants (ed. 3), III. 603. Geranium dissectum … Jagged Cranesbill. Road sides; borders of fields, ditch banks.

  4.  Irregularly and sharply pointed.

1651.  Biggs, New Disp., ¶ 80. All ice beginning, maketh jagged pikes, after the fashion of a Nettle-leafe.

1856.  Stanley, Sinai & Pal., iv. (1858), 205. Two jagged points, or ‘teeth of the cliff.’

1862.  Merivale, Rom. Emp. (1865), VII. lx. 306. Frowning cliffs and jagged pinnacles.

1900.  Ada B. Baker, in Blackw. Mag., July, 117. The quick jagged spear of the lightning flashed forth from the terror and gloom of the sky.